Earth Lab EDS Seminar: Min-Gon Chung

Title: Nature-based solutions for sustainable ecosystem services management
Speaker: Min-Gon Chung, ESIIL

Abstract:  Under increased anthropogenic pressures, nature-based solutions become crucial for sustainably providing environmental and socioeconomic benefits. Nature-based solutions exist everywhere in various forms such as protected areas and urban green space, yet little research has examined how existing nature-based solutions provide multi-benefits of ecosystem services beyond their initial objectives. To address this knowledge gap, I use open-source interdisciplinary datasets and leverage integrative data-driven methodologies along with systems modeling. My presentation will explore the diverse roles of existing nature-based solutions in sustaining essential ecosystem services and how these changes affect human systems from global to local levels: 1) natural infrastructure in sustaining global urban freshwater ecosystem services, 2) sustaining water diversion during severe droughts in California, 3) sustainable nature-based solutions for carbon mitigation in western forests, 4) valuation of forest-management and wildfire disturbance on water and carbon fluxes in mountain headwaters. Additionally, I will outline my research plan within ESIIL, integrating environmental data science to enhance science-based information for sustainable management strategies across multiple scales.

Speaker Bio: Min-Gon Chung is a postdoctoral associate at the Environmental Data Science Innovation & Inclusion Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is an environmental and sustainability researcher using systems modeling to address the complex issues of coupled human and natural systems. His research investigates how anthropogenic environmental changes interact with ecosystem service flows, management policies, and human demands within and across human and natural systems. Currently, he examines the effects of natural land management on water-carbon coupling and subsequent water-food-energy systems across the western US. This research helps develop sustainable management strategies to promote equitable distribution of essential ecosystem services to diverse stakeholders under a changing climate.